Storms and Blessings

I should have known better since I had lived in Wisconsin for over 30 years and grew up in Michigan. As the ice and  freezing rain began to fall upon Texas, I thought to myself, "I should have been more prepared!"  And at that moment my electricity went out. I stared down at my phone that had less than 5% battery. I did a little mental checklist of my refrigerator and cupboards which were not quite bare, but there was not much in them. Thankfully I was able to head to my car, warm it up, and charge my phone. I did have a gas stove- much to my chagrin when I was house hunting. (I definitely did not want a gas stove. In my experience gas stoves were equivalent to burnt meals.) Over the past few years I have learned to cook with gas and that stormy day with no electricity, I was very thankful for a gas stove.

Storm one left us with nine hours of no electricity, a cold house, and many tree limbs downed from our beautiful live oak trees. Once the power was back on, our poor puny Texas furnace could barely warm our house above 62°. Storms two, three, and four left many people without power- either for several days or for hours during rolling power outages. Most nearby localities were either completely without water or had boil water orders.

Between storm two and three, with our 2002 four-wheel-drive suburban (in Texas, the streets are NOT plowed), we checked on some people without water and electricity and brought them to our house to share the warmth and water. Bill Woosley, founder and president of FiveTwo Network, talks about lessons from the parable "The Feeding of the 5000" Mark 6:30-44. A couple lessons were "abundance from scarcity" and "miracles from the mundane".

Our miracles and abundance included: Other than the first storm, our house maintained both power and water. (When we found out later how our community kept our water supply during the storm, we were amazed.) Somehow our food just seemed to keep stretching even as more and more people joined us in our "powered and watered" home. During this time we were so richly blessed with special relationships! We had a house full of people and laughter, story telling, game playing, Bible reading, and so much more. Next time I will hopefully be more prepared for the winter storms in Texas, But in the meantime I thank God for using this time to shower us with
the incredible blessings of water, power, and people and the very special memories created during this time! 

Where in your life do you see abundance from scarcity or miracles from the mundane?